I may be already too late, but hopefully you aren't. I often say that it's the salesperson's responsibility -- not the sales managers -- to make quota. It is your responsibility to hire, train and put the salesperson in a position to win and exceed quota. Sales leadership means looking ahead 90 days or more to ensure you have the programs in place for success.
As we finish April, be conscious of pipeline values, business opportunities and activity levels to ensure you will exceed your July and August numbers. Summertime is what many sales leaders are always worried about, when salespeople and prospects take vacations, enjoy summer's more casual atmosphere (especially in the North), and pipelines, sales and sales activities dwindle. These months can impact your ability to exceed your quotas and revenues for those periods, as well as your September and October goals. What to do? Here are some ideas: More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on April 22, 20110 comments
After speaking at a recent sales conference -- my title was "Gourmet Living, Creating a Menu for Life" -- an attendee asked me a great question: "You spoke about creating a vision for your life and a passion for impacting the lives of others. I don't have a vision for what my life should be like. How do I develop one?"
While somewhat surprised, I realized that many people have led lives that were somewhat easy, with everything provided to them. Meanwhile, there are others who have lived in very difficult environments, with limited options and resources; many such people never consider that they could have a better future. While there are expectations for each situation, I've met individuals of many different ages and positions that have "stalled out" or peaked. They're simply living, but not living life! More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on April 08, 20110 comments
Last week, it was all about golf and putting. Now, after indulging in some men's and women's NCAA games all weekend, it's about strategy.
In my view, there are several levels of strategy sales teams should consider. First, putting the right players on the floor to match up against the competition's players is key (and the reason my first book, Hiring High Performance Sales Teams, was written). Without talent, you have no chance of winning. Good basketball teams are deep with talent. They can go large, or they can go small and fast. They can focus on defense as well as offense. More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on April 01, 20110 comments
I happened to be in Florida recently, visiting relatives, playing golf and enjoying the weather. I played 36 holes over two days, my first real golf of the season; before I came down from Knoxville, I went to the driving range at home and hit two buckets of balls to attempt to regain some form of respectability. Prior to my first round, I hit another half-bucket of balls and a few casual strokes on the putting green, and boom -- off to the No. 1 tee box. Amazingly, my first drive was right down fairway, but as I worked through the 18 holes, I struggled with a few bogeys and a few double bogeys.
In your role as a sales manager, are you taking your personal and professional development as casually as a few practice swings on the driving range? Recently, in a six-week series of sales management training programs for a major client, I had several participants who didn't complete a variety of reading assignments because they were too busy "closing out the quarter." For some reason, they could not find two hours over six weeks to read 15 pages of content. More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on March 25, 20110 comments
In preparing to speak at a sales award banquet this week, I was thinking about what kind of message I wanted to give the audience. Eventually, I arrived at a concept that all sales leaders must reinforce to their teams: Whether it's for a January kickoff event, a Monday morning sales meeting or a quarterly salesperson review session, sales managers must sell the need to plan for success.
Planning for success means building a sales organization that is not opportunistic in account management, prospecting, et cetera, but is focused on a methodology to ensure success. It also means that there is an expectation or attitude from management that is transmitted to the team that we will be successful, we are winners, we are better and we work together. This is part of what creates an atmosphere that separates the average-performing organizations from top-performing sales teams. More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on March 07, 20110 comments
Last week in my blog, I wrote about the importance for sales leaders to focus on building their sales teams' level of emotional commitment to and belief in their companies' products and services. On Tuesday, I spoke on the first day of a three-day national sales kickoff conference for a firm in Raleigh, NC. Even though I was leading off the afternoon with a keynote, I wanted to sit in on the first two hours in the morning to get a feel for the audience and theme of the event.
The first item on the agenda included a welcome by the VP of sales who created the perfect atmosphere by randomly asking 10 salespeople about their 2010 success stories. They had not been prompted. It was great to feel the mood in the room change from one of simply interest in the meeting to one of warmth, pride, teamwork and excitement about 2011! More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on February 22, 20110 comments
One of tenets we teach in our sales management workshops is the importance to develop a personal philosophy of leadership. Having a personal philosophy helps you set a course for your personal life as well as your professional career.
For the past 13 years with Acumen, I have attempted to address the issues that separated the poor to average sales managers with those that lead their sales teams to greatness. In my workshops, my new books, other programs and in my columns I have always spoken about the need for Discipline, Accountability and Control. I have stressed the power of motivation and need to have vision, belief, to provide coaching and to demand and expect success.
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Posted by Ken Thoreson on February 07, 20110 comments
This past week I had opportunity to work with a great client at a worldwide sales conference in Miami. During the two days, I spent several hours with the client's sales management team and four hours with the salespeople. They have a great sales culture and you could feel the attitude in the room. In the post meeting evaluations several reactions to the programs came out: 1) The importance of understanding the various personality styles, 2) The need to be "greedy with your time/Time Management" and 3) the fact that an individual's creativity can be learned or enhanced. Past blogs and our monthly newsletters have covered personality styles and time management so this week I thought I would address creativity.
There is no question about it, top performers are more creative that your average salespeople. They seem to come up with unique ideas to prospect, find ways to enhance client relationships and they close more effectively. Sales leadership requires creativity as well, sales managers that are exceeding sales quotas, hiring and developing their teams and building a sales culture require huge levels of a creativity quotient. More
Posted by Ken Thoreson on January 18, 20110 comments
In magazine columns and other blog postings I have written about being a proactive strategic sales manager rather than a reactive, fire-drill crazy, un-organized sales manager. As we close down 2010 and your thoughts about January are nestled in your head, its March that you should be considering.
If you have already built your first quarter sales training programs, have your management systems in place to analyze pipeline values and your recruiting plans are activated then you have some of the systems in place. Just to check, you might like to take a few minutes and take the Sales Management Assessment on our website: www.AcumenManagement.com.
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Posted by Ken Thoreson on December 21, 20100 comments
How to do a Successful To-Do List
- Get in the habit of doing a To Do list every day
- Be realistic and aware of your limitations
- Don't over schedule events
- Allow for time cushions
- Review your list every morning
- Ask yourself, "Why me?" Is there someone else that can do this?
- Group related activities: Am I prepared to lead the event?
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Posted by Ken Thoreson on November 30, 20100 comments
Several of my recent blogs have begun to discuss the business and sales management aspects of being prepared for 2011. The blog this week discusses the need to also focus on your 2011 plan for your personal life
During a recent keynote program I held with a group of individuals from an association I discussed the need to build both a successful personal and professional life to truly succeed. As some of you know, I enjoy cooking and collect cookbooks (over 150 in my library). During the session I discussed how pizza can be an analogy for life. Now everyone can relate to pizza, right? Thin or thick crust? Cheese or loaded with mushrooms, pepperoni, onions, sausage, etc. I like to suggest that everyone's life, both personal and professional, is made up of multiple "slices" with many ingredients.
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Posted by Ken Thoreson on November 16, 20100 comments